Re: Steels?

Wed Jul 24, 2013 7:32 am

I already have one of those looking for some thing that won't Remove any metal. I mainly use aeb-l steel. I was actually thinking of buying a new leather case for my idahone a put a .25 compound on it and make it a strop rod

Re: Steels?

Wed Jul 24, 2013 8:43 am

Polished and Packer's are different names for the same things.

There is a ton of misinformation about steeling around. What makes it so pernicious is that so much of it is conventional wisdom and believed and spread by a lot of otherwise very good sharpeners. The idea that a smooth rod will be more gentle on a knife than an extra or ultra-fine rod has a few believers here in the CKtG forum, but is about as valid as searing seals in the juices.

All rods remove at least some metal. No knife edge is perfectly smooth. All bevels have some degree of scuff, and when those scratches cross the edge, the edge becomes slightly jagged and toothy. Steeling on a rod bends the edge back and forth to true it; and -- no matter how smooth the rod is -- some of the teeth will get knocked off.

An Idahone "Fine" has approximately the same grit level as an aoto. If that's too coarse for you, you should true by stropping on something very smooth -- untreated newspaper or manila folder paper, for instance.

An issue with packer's steels is that they get scuffed and nicked themselves with use, and in not very much time they develop more texture than ceramics because ceramic itself is so much harder than the alloys used for metal rods. I slightly prefer fine ceramic rods to packer's; but there really isn't that much difference between them. One will work for you about as well the other.

AEB-L is a very nice alloy with lots of good properties. However, even in the impact hardness range of 60-61RCH it doesn't have high scratch hardness. That means that no matter how well your edge is polished when it comes off the stones, by the time it's had enough use to need truing, it's already pretty well scuffed up. And when you bend a scuffed edge back and forth, metal breaks off.

Think it through:Meat industry workers -- packer's -- work with relatively low hardness knives sharpened with very little polish (Norton Fine India is typical). So, preserving polish can't be what those rods are all about. QED.

If you wan a packer's you should have a packer's -- just don't buy it with the idea that it has some special juju. It's just a rod.

Charging your HA with compound is a bad idea. Rods work so quickly and with such light pressure because the geometry of the tiny contact patch between edge and rod generates huge force. You don't want to make any rod "faster" than it already is because small errors mean large consequences.

As to your question about charging the HA Boro's case with compound and using it as a strop:Really. Bad. Idea.

The case isn't flat which makes it a terrible choice for stropping a kitchen knife. Not only that, you'll destroy the case, and it's far more expensive to replace it (if it's replaceable at all) than a piece of leather glued to a piece of mdf.

Would the strop rod remove less metal since the ceramic rod is between 1000 to 2000 grit and the compound is more on the lines of 64000 grit or higher?

An exact answer is difficult and because (a) there aren't enough specifics in the hypothetical; and (b) I don't know enough about the subject to apply the math necessary for a quantified answer the question; so (c) I can't attempt an answer -- at least not to five place accuracy.

A practical, non-quantified answer is another matter. As a rule, fine textured rods (including polished, "no-texture" rods), if used correctly, remove the metal that's going to come off anyway and not much more. Stropping on an fine or ultra-fine charge, or on a smooth, uncharged strop usually doesn't take as much metal as steeling. However, steeling seldom leaves wires, while stropping does and consequently tends to require some sort of deburring.

Not all knives are appropriate candidates for truing on rod hones. But for those which are, a rod is a helluva lot faster and more convenient than a strop.

If you want to pursue these subjects, read Steeling Away first so you have some idea of what I mean when I say "correctly," and we'll move on to the next state of confusion.